1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to the field of electronic publishing, and more particularly to an interactive multimedia book useful in providing a user with hands-on multimedia instructions in response to voiced commands.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Books which provide instruction in various arts, ranging from gardening to cooking to woodworking, are especially popular, as may be readily seen by the number of shelves devoted to them in major bookstores. Generally speaking, however, these books are intended to be read at one location, and then the knowledge gained from them applied in another location. Take for example a cookbook. There may be sections of the cookbook which provide instruction on various cooking techniques and other sections which set out the recipes. The user of the cookbook is typically not able to read the book on topics of technique instruction while attempting to cook. It is more a matter of reading and then attempting to execute based on the instructions read. More commonly, a cookbook will be laid open in the kitchen at the place of a recipe to allow the user to make more or less frequent reference to the ingredients and quantities. For this purpose, there are number of devices currently sold in kitchen supply stores which hold a cookbook at an easy to read angle with a transparent plastic cover so as to protect the open pages of the cookbook from splatters. These devices make it difficult to page back and forth in the cookbook, but generally the desired recipe is on a single page.
The ease of use of other types of instructional books is also a problem. A gardening book is typically not found in the environment it describes; that is, in the garden or the potting shed. The book is simply too valuable to the user to be ruined by soil and water and, in any case, the book is not easily used when one is wearing gardening gloves and handling a spade or trowel. The same is true of woodworking books. In the environment of the wood shop, there are many potentially dangerous tools requiring the full attention of the user. One cannot safely operate a radial arm saw while looking at the illustrations in a book.
There are many other instructional books which have the same problems. Many of these are in the nature of do-it-yourself (DIY) repair and maintenance books, such as home repair and automobile repair and maintenance books. Consider for example the problem of replacing an electrical switch in the home. To someone familiar with the procedure, it is quite simple; however, to the new homeowner, even the simplest home wiring problem can be quite mysterious. And sometimes just reading a book on the procedure does not always provide that sufficient degree of confidence that would allow the homeowner to confidently and competently complete the procedure. As to automobile repair and maintenance, which at one time was the avocation of many young American males, this is not something attempted much nowadays simply because the modern automobile has become such a complex machine. Yet, there are many things the average car owner can do on their own provided they had the right instruction. But a book is not always a good substitute for personal instruction.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a book which provides the user with instruction in a safe and effective manner in a variety of environments.
It is another and more specific object of the invention to provide an interactive multimedia book which provides hands-on multimedia instruction to the user in response to voiced commands.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an easy to use computer system on which the interactive multimedia book may be implemented and which is suitable to various environments in which the book might be used.
According to the invention, the interactive multimedia book is published on a computer readable medium with the necessary software to support the interactive operation of the book. Alternatively, the book may be downloaded from a remote site using a network, such as the Internet, in which case the content of the book and the necessary software are copied to a local medium, such as a computer hard disk. In a preferred embodiment, the book may be published in the form of a compact disk (CD), digital versatile disk (DVD) or other computer readable medium containing both the content of the book and the necessary software. The content includes both text and audio/video clips.
The interactive multimedia book is accessed by a computer system which is equipped with a microphone and voice recognition software. Voiced commands and natural language queries are the primary user input to the computer system, but conventional inputs, such as the usual keyboard and mouse, can also be provided for user input. The computer system is also equipped with a high resolution display, a voice synthesizer with a text-to-speech module, and a speaker or headphone system to provide the output to the user. A combination headphone and directional microphone can be especially convenient in some environments as, for example, the wood shop where the headphones allow the user to better hear the instruction over the din of machine noise while at the same time protecting the user""s hearing. Optionally, the computer system may be equipped with a printer to provide the user with a hard copy output of specific content.
In operation, when the computer system is initially turned on, a determination is made as to whether the user has inserted a CD or DVD containing an interactive multimedia book or if such a book or books are stored on the hard disk of the computer system. The user is given the option of selecting and playing an interactive multimedia book. Once the process of playing the interactive multimedia book begins, the user selects a specific topic or project in the book by any one of several input options, including speaking the topic or project name or speaking a natural language query. Responding to the command or natural language query, the computer system accesses the desired topic or project and displays text and optionally an image relevant to the topic or project. The displayed text is written in a markup language, such as HyperText Markup Language (HTML), and contains hyperlinks which link the current topic with other related topics. These hyperlinks have some attribute, such as color, which changes when a pointing cursor is placed on them, as is well known in the art. However, in the preferred embodiment of the invention, the user may command the book to read the text by, for example, the spoken command xe2x80x9cREADxe2x80x9d. As the text is read by the text-to-speech module of the voice synthesizer, a word which is also a hyperlink will change its visual attribute upon being spoken, just as if the pointing cursor had been placed on the word, and activate an aural attribute, such as a bell or chime. The user will be able to observe or hear this and, without having to click a mouse button, simply utter the word which is the hyperlink to navigate to the linked topic.
To facilitate the interactive operation of the book, the voice recognition system is provided with a limited vocabulary of commands. These include, among others, the command xe2x80x9cREADxe2x80x9d already mentioned. Other commands include xe2x80x9cCONTENTSxe2x80x9d, which causes the contents of the book to be displayed, xe2x80x9cVIDEOxe2x80x9d, which selects a video clip indicated by a displayed icon, and xe2x80x9cPLAYxe2x80x9d, which plays the selected video clip. A word which is a hyperlink also functions as a command causing the linked topic to be accessed. To return, to the preceding text, the user speaks the command xe2x80x9cRETURNxe2x80x9d, this command functioning much the same way as the xe2x80x9cBACK ARROWxe2x80x9d does in a browser on the World Wide Web (WWW). The number of commands is purposely kept relatively small to minimize or eliminate the training time required for most voice recognition systems, thereby making the interactive multimedia book readily useful to the widest audience.